Volunteer Helps Write Success Stories At Homeless Center

November 09, 1994|By Jody Temkin. Special to the Tribune.

Mary Cadigan has a friend who volunteers in a hospital and another who volunteers as an employment counselor. Her choice is to help the homeless, and it's a choice that isn't easy to explain to people, Cadigan says.

It's difficult for her to find words to describe the satisfaction she receives from working at The Hope Center, a resource agency for the homeless in Arlington Heights, she says. "Something about it just touches my soul.

"My friend in the hospital visits with sick and dying people and just loves volunteering there," says Cadigan, 62, who lives in Arlington Heights. "But I wouldn't want to do that. I took my other friend to The Hope Center with me one day, and she said she didn't want to go back."

People have "their own feelings of what's right for them. This is right for me."

It's also right for the 35 to 40 other volunteers who keep the low-budget, non-profit group on its feet. The center has no paid staff and operates in a rent-free room in the basement of the Wheeling Township building, 1616 N. Arlington Heights Rd.

The center is not a shelter or a warming place. Homeless clients can come for help finding a place to live, to use the phone for a job search or to receive mental health or job counseling. They also can use the center's address as a mailing address and a special phone message service that will take their calls regarding jobs.

A job counselor is available by appointment several times a week, and a nurse and podiatrist offer free care about once a month.

Cadigan, who works two days a week as a receptionist for the township, usually volunteers at the center one day a week and fills in other times when needed. She works at the front desk and deals with clients as they come in. She may give them their mail, for example, or locate a pantry where they can obtain food. Typically, two volunteers staff the office at a time. The center is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

"Sometimes it's quiet, and sometimes they're lined up (outside) the door," says Cadigan, who has been a volunteer most of the two years the center has been open.

The rectangular office, where the volunteers work, has public transportation posters on the walls alongside lists of the center's rules and notification of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the township.

One day recently, Cadigan greeted four clients in her first 1 1/2 hours.

One, who lives in his car, is checking to see if some mail he was expecting has arrived; it hasn't. Another, living temporarily with friends, has come for help finding a job. A third is asking where he can get food; he is directed upstairs to the township offices, where someone will help him fill out public aid forms.

The fourth is picking up some used clothing a volunteer has found. He uses the men's room to change and shave. He recently has found a job through the center but doesn't have enough money yet for housing. Cadigan doesn't know where he has been living.

Most clients hear about the center through word of mouth. "There's an underground grapevine," Cadigan says. "They meet at the library or train station, or they come here from the shelters."

She estimates that about 150 people visit the center each month. Many are looking for affordable housing, which, she notes, is extremely difficult to find in the northwest suburbs.

Cadigan, who has lived in Arlington Heights for 35 years, grew up on the South Side of Chicago. After graduating from Longwood Academy, a private high school, she went to work for a railroad. She started as a secretary, then went on to do other things that included riding the train as a chaperone and tour guide of sorts for high school groups taking trips.

Cadigan married in 1958. She and her husband, Bill, have six children and three grandchildren. She took business and marketing classes at Harper College in Palatine while their children were young and held a variety of jobs (mostly part time), which included directing community relations at a local savings bank. She has been a receptionist at the township offices for 2 1/2 years.

Before she began volunteering at the center, she volunteered at a homeless shelter in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood on the North Side for about 10 years. Then, as the homeless problem became more obvious in her own area, "I felt I should get involved here," she says.

"She is very generous. She has a good heart," says McNulty, who often works at the phones seeking resources for clients.

"Sometimes we're able to find people a job; or if it's a housing situation, we can sometimes team people up to share an apartment or a room-anything to keep them off the streets, especially when there are children involved."

Cadigan remembers one client, a woman with a child, who came to the center afraid for her life. She had been staying at a local motel with an abusive boyfriend. She had family in Pennsylvania, but no money to get there.